Companies or people often engage in transactions involving a purchase or sale of large quantities of products. Unfortunately, such transactions may have a significant market impact on the price of the product and may be easy for the media, industry watchers, or alert competitors to detect and monitor. A large purchase or sale of a product often significantly increases or decreases market price for the product because of the additional significant demand or supply for the product imposed on the market. In addition, a large transaction conducted at a single marketplace or with a single supplier, seller, purchaser etc. may limit or reduce options regarding negotiation, price, delivery, shipping, etc.
It would be advantageous to provide a method and apparatus that overcame the drawbacks of the prior art and allow companies or people to conduct transactions that mitigate the impact on supply, demand, and price for a product resulting from large volume purchases or sales of the product. In particular, it would be desirable to provide a method and apparatus for reducing the market impact of any one transaction involving a product and to allow flexibility regarding the purchase and sale of a large volume of the product.